Hi, it’s Dr Michael Ghobrial here from Sure Dental at Wavell Heights in Brisbane.
John, who had recently moved into the neighbourhood with his wife Christina, visited us at the practice yesterday. He was coming in for a consultation about his jaw. Occasionally, he would notice hearing it click when he opens his mouth.
He was a bit concerned about it, and was wondering if there was a problem. This is actually quite a common problem, so I thought I’d make this short video to give you a little bit of information on what it means when you hear your jaw clicking.
Now, jaw clicking is a result of the fact that the joint in our jaw has a little cartilage called the meniscus, and sometimes that meniscus can drift forward and get caught as our jaw opens. As our jaw bone slides forward, it gets caught and then goes back into position, and that is when we hear a click.
Now, sometimes it’ll draw forward, and it won’t click back into position, and that’s when people experience a jaw lock, so either their mouth closed or their mouth open. Now clicks in the jaw can be common and for some people, a jaw click doesn’t really mean any issues, they have it every now and then it doesn’t hurt and it never flares up. But for other people, this can be a bit of a degenerative problem, and they can have issues with jaw locking and also pain around there.
In those scenarios, we often will consider lots of disciplines of treatment, sometimes some specialised physiotherapy to build the muscles up around there and help relax the areas that need to be relaxed. Other times, an orthotic or a nightguard that we make, positioning the jaw in a relaxed position at night to reduce the loads. And other times we’ll actually use Botox in the jaw muscle as a relaxant, which can be very effective in helping a painful jaw click.
So jaw clicks can happen. Sometimes it’s associated with issues that need to be treated. And in those cases, we use lots of disciplines according to the individual cases. And other times it’s actually not associated with any symptoms and doesn’t need treatment at all.
So I hope you found this video useful. If you have any issues with your jaw and would like to have a professional opinion about it, we would love to look after you.
Simply visit our website at www.suredental.com.au and fill out the enquiry form, send us a direct message on our social media, or give us a call on 07 3113 9698, and our friendly team will be in touch to help you organise your consultation. See you in the next video.
